Smile Like You Mean It
by bookworm03
Summary: Just some post-day 4 drivel that I wrote ages and ages ago and came across tonight... Purely a one-shot and a little angsty. Tony/Michelle


**A/N: **_I'm still in the process of editing the last chapter of Disenchanted (I had to change some stuff, sigh ) and I was going through some old documents and found this fic and figured what the hell…may as well post it. Hahaha. It's not that great, but I don't completely hate it either and even managed to think of a title…it was written like eons ago after I watched season 4 for the 50__th__ time and got inspired. _

_For those of you interested, the last chapter of Disenchanted should be up by the end of the week. Hopefully everyone enjoys this… _

Smile Like You Mean It

She was pretty.

He'd noticed that immediately. She was pretty and professional and smart.

Actually…she was very pretty.

He would've preferred it she'd talked a bit more, and not just about work. In the beginning he'd tried to make pleasant conversation with her; to make her feel welcome, he'd rationalized. She didn't respond much though. The polite comment here or there just to be nice; because he was her boss and she didn't want to be rude. But he could always tell she wasn't in the mood.

He couldn't help but notice that when she walked it was as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders. Her pin-straight hair was plastered back from her face and her makeup, while minimal, seemed a little too harsh for her features. Her clothes were perfectly pressed, as was every other aspect of her appearance. Every task seemed to be done with great effort but she did it nonetheless. She kept her head down and spoke only when necessary and most of the other staff seemed to think she was cold. He'd never considered her cold.

But she would've been prettier if she smiled.

One night during her first week, well after midnight, he'd rushed back to the office realizing he had forgotten something for his meeting the following day and wouldn't have time to pick it up in the morning. He was surprised to see she was still there; keying away furiously at her computer.

"Michelle…" he approached cautiously, his eyebrows slightly raised.

Her head snapped back and she looked startled.

"What are you still doing here?"

She shrugged. "I thought I'd get some work done. There isn't much to do at home."

"You were here at 7; you should get some rest." He insisted, forgetting the reason he was there.

"I don't sleep much anyway." She told him simply and waited for him to walk away before turning back to her monitor.

The odd time she was left in charge she did everything by the book. No one could've criticized her or penalized her for acting the way she did in each and every situation and ninety-nine percent of the time it worked out for the best. It was similar to the way he dealt with things and for that reason he liked her even more.

It wasn't long before he realized he was attracted to her; a few weeks maybe, (which was rather fast for him). It took much longer for him to find out who she actually was and why she had transferred in the first place.

Initially, he considered her a private person who liked to keep to herself. It wasn't until she received a phone call from CTU LA her second month on the job which left her motionless at her desk for a good ten minutes that he started to get concerned.

"Is everything alright, Michelle?" he probed delicately, making sure they were out of earshot of everyone else on the floor.

"Fine." He couldn't help but notice her voice was slightly hoarse and the little color there had been in her cheeks had vanished completely.

"What'd CTU want?" he asked carefully and she shot him an incredulous look.

"Just um…" she stuttered. "A friend. It was a personal call, I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

He hesitated before placing his hand lightly on her shoulder and removing it just as quickly when he saw her surprised expression.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Bill." She regained her composure and the uneasiness was instantly lifted from her face.

He nodded. "Okay."

After he left Michelle, Bill spent a good half hour placing phone calls to various contacts in various departments spanning from Seattle to Los Angeles until he finally found out the truth.

"She's Tony Almeida's wife." Leslie, at the LA District office informed him.

The name rang a bell but he couldn't quite place it.

"A couple of months ago, when LA was under the threat of the Cordilla Virus the Director of CTU was arrested for treason." Leslie explained. "That was Michelle's husband…"

Bill frowned. "Her husband's a convicted traitor? No wonder she's…"

"You don't know the half of it, Bill." Leslie pressed onwards. "Michelle was at the Chandler Plaza Hotel when the virus was released… I don't know the specifics, but somehow she ended up getting kidnapped by Stephen Saunders. Saunders blackmailed Almeida into letting him escape and they arrested Almeida when the threat had passed."

"So he's in prison because he…"

He heard Leslie gulp on the other end of the phone.

* * *

When Michelle came running into the office an hour and a half late one Monday morning Bill was there to meet her.

"I'm so sorry. My flight was delayed." She apologized profusely. "I just got back from the airport now."

"It's fine, Michelle. Are you-?"

"It won't happen again."

"It doesn't matter." He brushed it off. "Are you alright?"

"I'm-" her eyes pooled with tears – something he'd never seen them do before – and Bill wrapped his hand around her elbow.  
"Come up to my office." He told her gently.

She swallowed hard and nodded as he pulled her towards the stairs. If she'd told him the simple way he had grasped her was making the whole situation about a thousand times worse he would've thought she was crazy.

"So you found out…" she stated bluntly the second he'd closed the door.

"It wasn't easy."

"It wasn't supposed to be. Brad Hammond specifically kept that information confidential when I was transferred."

Bill nodded and said nothing.

"It won't affect my work." She told him bluntly.

"I'm not worried about that, Michelle." He said gently, meeting her gaze. She looked at the ground and toyed with the end of her blazer.

"If you need a minute…"

"I don't."

"If you _ever_ need some time… I'll understand…"

She finally looked up. "Will you?" her eyes flashed."My husband was convicted of treason because of me." She stated, a hint of anger present in her voice. "Trust me Bill, the less you understand the better."

* * *

He remembered his first day on the job as Division Chief well. He remembered being pleasantly surprised when he heard Michelle was there now, and would be working with him again. She'd left Seattle with barely any notice, (not that he had thought it right to require too much from her), and returned to LA to be with her husband.

But when he saw her that first day he knew something had gone wrong…again. Everything about her was totally and completely different. She'd gone from withdrawn and impersonal to downright angry. Anytime she spoke to someone it was to give an order and any order she gave was done so without compassion. She no longer kept her head down to get through each day, she asserted herself more boldly and any hint of softness he'd observed in the months she was at Seattle was gone.

She was separated.

Her file said so.

And the status had been changed a mere few days before he came to LA.

Whenever he tried to broach the subject she brushed him off and insisted she didn't need to talk about it. Things had happened, things had changed, and that was just the way it was now. Eventually, she started to warm up to him again…though it took a few months. She started to talk to him about her personal life on more than one occasion and he did the same. Not about her husband though…never about her husband.

When the divorce was finalized she didn't stop running around Division for the better part of two days. She didn't return home either. Any sleep she got was done in her office and on the third morning she bolted awake the second he pushed inside the room to go over the protocols.

"When was the last time you went home?" he'd asked, in obvious consternation.

She shrugged when she answered, her voice hoarse from sleep. "I had a lot of work to do…there was no reason to go home."

"I'm sorry…" he rubbed her arm sympathetically. She didn't say anything, just stared at the wall.

* * *

It was over two months when they both finally acknowledged there was…something…between them. They wouldn't have even then if things hadn't escalated without warning.

Alone in her office one night, neither of them really knowing how, they'd kissed. One minute he'd been leaning over her chair, the next they were kissing, and the next she was pulling away and moving across the room so quickly he didn't notice until she had already put ten feet between them. Awkward apologies were exchanged as she cupped a hand over her mouth in disbelief and he excused himself.

He decided the next day to ask her out, on the off chance she might say yes. He had, undeniably, felt something the previous evening and he was pretty sure she must have to. Much to his delight, she agreed without much persuasion and even seemed relieved at the notion.

It took three dates for him to realize she wasn't ready yet. Three dates of pleasant conversation with ambiguous sexual undertones and uncomfortable goodnights.

"I'm sorry…" she told him apologetically at the end of date number four. "I just…I don't think I can do this… I thought I could but…"

"It's alright, Michelle." He quietly shushed her. "You've had a difficult year. I understand."

"It's just too soon right now."

He smiled affectionately and rubbed her arm.

"Okay."

* * *

He'd never seen her so emotional in the entire time he'd known her and he certainly knew better than to chalk it up to the crisis situation with Habib Marwan they were facing. He'd seen her in crisis situations before and Michelle didn't get emotional; at least not right smack dab in the middle of one.

But in the span of a couple of hours she'd been angry, upset and vulnerable and all to a larger extent than all the months Bill had been working with her combined.

It was him.

Tony Almeida.

That was what he did to her.

He was too deeply engrained in her…He turned her from someone who was poised and withdrawn to someone who was passionate and gritty and raw. From the first time he had spoken to her that evening the hurt had come back, the battle scars had been ripped open and everything she had ever felt from the moment he'd been taken away to the moment she'd left hit her like a ton of bricks.

But despite all of that, there was no denying she still cared for him. Any idiot could see that. His capability was brought into question and she defended him without a thought, without even the slightest hesitation. She never stopped trusting him... After everything they'd been through – everything _he'd _put her through – she trusted him as much as she did before.

And when she thought she lost him she fell to pieces…so badly that she had to be sent home. She'd been through a lot, but this was the final straw. This was what she feared more than anything. She remembered what it felt like before; the fear, the devastation, the relief…

* * *

Bill Buchanan stepped briskly through the doors of CTU and into the now drizzly rain. Jack Bauer's tragic death had meant many extra hours in the office for most of the staff after an already grueling day, and he was utterly exhausted. He simultaneously loosened his tie and slung his bag over his shoulder when he caught Michelle, arms folded across her chest as she huddled under the small strip of shelter from the rain the doorway offered.

"Hey," she spoke softly when she noticed him.

He smiled and came to stand beside her. "What are you doing out here?"

"Forgot my jacket." She explained; indicating to the crinkled, slightly damp and transparent white blouse she had on that was, as far as Bill was concerned, totally and completely uncharacteristically her. Her eyes flickered towards the doorway and Bill sighed, knowing who had gone to retrieve the jacket (probably not without argument from her).

"You shouldn't stand out here." He reprimanded gently, knowing it was in no way his place to do so. "It's cold."

"I needed some air." She explained and her eyelids fluttered shut as she inhaled deeply.

He chanced a quick glance at the doorway before taking a step closer and placing his hand gently on her back

"I'm sorry about Jack."

She blinked away the tears that formed in her eyes and bit her lip. "Thanks."

"Are you okay?" he asked softly. The words brought on a sense of déjà vu but the circumstances under which he said them this time were one hundred percent different. She was one hundred percent different.

"Yeah…I'm…" she met his eyes and her lips curved upwards faintly. "I'm good."

He squeezed her shoulder firmly and smiled a little.

"Good."

The doors to CTU flew open and Tony emerged with Michelle's jacket in his hand.

"Everything okay?" Tony studied both of them and a look of concern crossed his face.

"Yeah." Bill stepped towards the curb, aware that Tony's eyes hadn't left him.

"Tony what I said to you earlier…" he began, averting Michelle's perplexed gaze. "I apologize. Your help was invaluable and we couldn't have managed today without you."

He extended a hand and Tony shook it.

"I'll see both of you tomorrow."

They nodded and Bill stepped off the curb.

"Night."

Bill glanced back towards the doorway in time to see Tony step towards Michelle and wrap the jacket around her, pulling her in close for warmth and leaning their foreheads together. His fingers pushed back a few strands of messy hair and her eyes closed. That was another thing he could do. He was the only person she ever gave herself to completely; the only person she let take care of her…

He muttered something and she smiled softly, as their lips brushed together and he continued to stroke her hair. After a few seconds he pulled her towards her car, and Bill knew he had been right about one thing, if nothing else...

Michelle really was prettier when she smiled.


End file.
